grounded . . . or amish

My parents took me to Amish country, which to a kid, to see a bunch of people that have no cars, no TV, no phone, you go, "So what? Neither do I." Who wants to see a whole community that's been grounded? That's the way they should punish the kids after they've seen Amish country. "All right son, get up to your room. That's it, I've had it, you are Amish young man. For the rest of this weekend. Did you hear me? Amish! And don't come down till you've made some noodles and raised a barn."

-Jerry Seinfeld

magic acts

I don't think anything competes with a magic act for humiliating entertainment value.

What is the point of the magician? He comes on, he fools you, you feel stupid, show's over. You never know what's actually happened. It's never explained. And that's the kind of attitude the magician seems to have as he's performing.

It's like, "Here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're a jerk." Sometimes they ask you to blow on it. There's something mature adults like to do, blow on a deck of cards. I also love that little pretend look of surprise they do when the trick works. Like, "Oh, I didn't know that was going to happen myself. I even amaze me."

~ Jerry Seinfeld

[N.B., In the end I do believe that one could insert a variety of 'hermeneutic' for 'magician' and 'text' for 'quarter' - as for the blow, that's up to you to decide . . .]

snack-pack

I hated those little snack-pack cereals.  Still do.  Don't like portion control.

And on the side they would explain how to cut along the perforated lines and pour milk right into the box.

What was the point of this?  Pretending your parents couldn't afford a bowl?

-Jerry Seinfeld

in and out

You can divide your whole life into two basic categories.

You're either saying in or going out.

Everything else is irrelevant detail.

The urge to go out and then return is very strong.  Just

look at what happens to people when they don't want to 

stay home and they have to.  They become despondent.  Or

if someone's locked out of their house and can't

get in when they want?  They go nuts.

We must go out.  We must go back.

When you're out, everything's a little out of control and

exciting.  Something could happen.  You might see

something.  You might find out something.  You might even

be a part of something.  We've got to go out there.

When you're back in your house you're like the conductor

of an orchestra.  You know where everything is and how to

work it.  You move confidently from one part of your

house to another.  You know exactly where you're going

and what will happen when you get there.

You're the maestro of a symphony with nothing on

but socks and underwear.

And it's because we know it so well that

we've got to get out.

ah, mr bond

But when you want to enjoy something, you must never let logic get too much in the way.  Like the villains in all the James Bond movies.  Whenever Bond breaks into the complex: "Ah, Mr. Bond, welcome, come in.  Let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't work."

The other odd thing about the Bond movies is they have the most evil guy in the world vs. the most good guy in the world and you leave liking both of them equally.

-Jerry Seinfeld, SeinLanguage, 111.

return of SeinLanguage

I was cleaning out a closet the other day when I found an old copy of SeinLanguage.  This book was published in 1993 and is basically a print version of many of comedian Jerry Seinfeld's acts observations, some of which made it on his show (or other tv appearances) and some that didn't.  It has been fun to randomly read through parts of it and I thought I would share some of the better ones as I leave it on my desk for diversion-time.  Here are two:

Magazines are another medium I love because, like TV, 95% of it is simply based on "How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?"  You can always tell it's a slow news week when you see articles like, "Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?"  Here's a hot topic - who's got time for this?  "Hey, what happened to the dinosaurs?  Weren't they just here?"  Maybe comets killed the dinosaurs, maybe they tripped and fell.  What's the difference?  We'll never know.  We couldn't solve the Kennedy Assassination, we had films of that.  Good luck with the Stegosaurus.

and

Sunday paper is the worst.  Weekend.  You want to relax.  "Oh, by the way, here's a thousand pages of information you had no idea about."  How can they tell you everything they know ever single day of the week and then have this much left over on Sunday when there's nothing going on?

Good Stuff.